Mideast on Edge

Daily Caller

There are lessons to be learned from Iran firing a drone into Israeli air space and Israel’s destruction of about half of Syria’s air defense capabilities in response:

Iran is testing not only its capabilities abroad, but the reactions of its enemies and its security on the home front

Israel is testing as well

Russia’s appears unwilling to take on any more military activity than absolutely necessary and is unwilling to confront Iran.

The US will stand by Israel, but may not be willing to push Iran out of Syria.

Iran

Iran’s goal is to operate militarily across Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon – north of its adversaries Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Israel. To this end, Iran “helped” move not only ISIS fighters, but tens of thousands of Sunni Arabs, from its westward path. Iran controls militias of more than 80,000 fighters in Syria. Israeli sources say there are 3,000 members of Iran’s IRGC commanding 9,000 Hizb’allah, and 10,000 “violent Shia militias recruited from across the Mideast, including Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.” The rest are Syrian.

The Battle for Syria

Atlantic

UN investigators are looking into reports the Syrian regime used chemical weapons on at least two rebel-held towns in recent days. The reports mark at least the sixth time the regime of President Bashar Assad has used such weapons against civilian population centers.

The UN Commission of Inquiry on Syria said Tuesday it had received multiple reports “that bombs allegedly containing weaponized chlorine have been used in the town of Saraqeb in Idlib and Douma in eastern Ghouta.” The allegation is likely to further increase tensions between the U.S. and Russia at the UN Security Council, where both countries are permanent, veto-wielding members. The U.S. complains that Russia, which backs the Assad regime, blocks any meaningful action against the Syrian leader’s use of internationally prohibited weapons.

The Edge of Terrorism

IPT

In the first official statement of its kind, the Muslim Brotherhood announced last month that it now regards the United States of America as an enemy, following President Trump's decision to move its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. The statement was published on the Brotherhood's Arabic language website, where it often publishes more incendiary rhetoric.

"Jerusalem is an Islamic and Arab land, for which we make blood, freedom and life, and we fight every aggressor and every supporter of aggression," the statement said.

It called for a unified Islamist and Palestinian response "to ignite an uprising throughout the Islamic world against the Zionist occupation and the American administration in support of the occupation and against the rights and freedoms of the peoples." Read more ..

The Weapon's Edge

India Express and agencies

Months after it decided to scrap a deal to acquire the weapons from an Israeli firm, India is considering purchase of Spike anti-tank guided missiles (ATGMs) from Israel via the government-to-government (G-to-G) route, PTI reported.

Interestingly, the latest development comes a week before Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is scheduled to visit India. It is expected that the two countries may deliberate on finding ways to further deepen the already close defence ties between India and Israel during his talks with Indian leaders in New Delhi.

As per the original proposal, India had planned to procure the ATGMs for the Army at a cost of USD 500 million. According to a PTI report, the government is now examining the possibility of purchasing the missiles from Israel through the G-to-G route in the same manner it sealed the deal for procuring 36 Rafale jets from France. Read more ..

The Battle for Syria

NYT

The main Russian air and naval bases in Syria beat back an attack by 13 armed drones over the weekend, the Russian Ministry of Defense said on Monday.

The small drones were shot down before they caused any damage and there were no casualties, according to a statement on the military’s Facebook page.

But the attack could indicate that militants opposed to the government of President Bashar al-Assad were stepping up the violence directed against the Russian military, which intervened in September 2015 to prop up the beleaguered Syrian government, then its main ally in the Middle East.

Two Russian military personnel died in a mortar attack against the Hmeimim air base on Dec. 31, the military announced last week.

Israel on Edge

Ynet

As we travel towards the border fence, we see a pillar of thick black smoke rising to the heavens. "They're burning tires," the scout tells me as he suppresses a smile. "Burning tires look great on camera."

He has been serving in this area for years, and he has already seen it all. The Palestinian protests that erupted following US President Donald Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital no longer surprise him. They take place, he tells me, all days of the week, but on Fridays after prayers in the mosques, Hamas and Islamic Jihad make special efforts to send young Gazans to protest along the border fence.

We stop behind an earthen mound adjacent to the border fence. Behind it lie Golani and Duvdevan soldiers, divided into small groups, careful not to raise their heads. The Palestinian protesters are hurling glass marbles at them using slingshots. If such marbles hit the head or other sensitive parts of the body, they could kill. There are only 30 to 40 meters separating the soldiers and the protesters in some places. At this distance, marbles are as dangerous as a bullet, perhaps even more so. Read more ..

The Weapon's Edge

from agencies

China's home-grown AG600, the world's largest amphibious aircraft in production, took to the skies on Sunday for its maiden flight. The plane, codenamed "Kunlong" according to state news agency Xinhua, took off from the southern city of Zhuhai and landed after roughly an hour-long flight.

With a wingspan of 38.8 meters (127 feet) and powered by four turboprop engines, the aircraft is capable of carrying 50 people and can stay airborne for 12 hours.

The amphibious aircraft has military applications but will be used for firefighting and marine rescue, with at least 17 orders placed so far with state-owned manufacturer Aviation Industry Corp of China, state media reported. Read more ..

The Caliphate

Rubin Center

One of the most common concepts to describe al-Qaida’s presence in Syria has been that of ‘playing the long game.'[1] That is, whereas its rival the Islamic State focused on quickly defeating other Syrian insurgent groups and opponents, establishing a state project and imposing the harshest aspects of Islamic law (i.e. the hudud punishments for serious crimes), al-Qaida has chosen to embed deeply within the insurgency fighting the Assad regime. Thus, al-Qaida affiliates and al-Qaida-linked groups have generally proven themselves to be valuable military partners for other factions, while not working to impose all aspects of Islamic law immediately on the populations in their zones of control and influence, but rather working to condition the locals to accept their imposition eventually. Read more ..

The Edge of Terrorism

ACD

Qatar's purposeful support of the Muslim Brotherhood, Iran, Turkey, and radical Islamist terrorist groups led Saudi Arabia,BahrainEgypt, and the UAE to cut all ties with the Emirate last June. Indeed, it was no secret that "Qatar has a long history of harboring terrorist operatives and financing various extremist groups, including Hamas, the Taliban, al Qaeda, the al-Nusra Front, and the Muslim Brotherhood."

Nonetheless, Qatar has been protesting and arguing ever since that the "blockade" violates international law and human rights. But the Anti-Terrorist Quartet (ATQ) has put Qatar on their 'terror finance watchlist' and

banned major Qatari charities. Among the terrorist-supporting charities named, is Qatar Charity that advertises its mission is "to participate in the preservation of Islamic culture through the construction of mosques. We spread our Islamic teachings with the world, and we invite you to be part of it in this achievement." But the QC -- that nation's and one of the Arab World's largest charities -- has long been known to fund the very same extremists Islamists terror groups listed by the ATQ.

Nihad Awad is certainly a significant figure, but he is not a "great moral visionary." Instead, Awad has a long history of promoting and condoning Islamist anti-Semitism, refusing to condemn terrorist organizations, and maintaining close connections with Muslim Brotherhood offshoots.

The Caliphate

IPT

The fall of ISIS's physical caliphate is likely to create a shift in radical Islamic terrorism, an Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT) analysis of data from the University of Maryland's National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and the Responses to Terrorism (START)'s Global Terrorism Database (GTD) finds.

Fewer people may be killed in radical Islamic terror attacks, but the terrorists will seek new safe havens and adapt their online strategies to maintain a virtual caliphate.

From the data, five phases were identified. The first phase from 2001-2006 saw on average 2,500 fatalities globally. Phase two from 2007-2011 saw an average of 3,200 global fatalities. In phase three, 2012-2013, there was an annual average of 9,500 global fatalities, and in phase four, 2014-2016, an exponential spike in fatalities showed an average annual of around 27,500 global fatalities. Now that the caliphate is finally collapsing, the fifth phase, according to the IPT, will start to see a decline in annual fatalities globally. Read more ..

Iran and North Korea

WINEP

High-level meetings between North Korean and Iranian officials in recent months are stoking concerns inside the U.S. government about the depth of military ties between the two American adversaries. In September, President Trump ordered U.S. intelligence agencies to conduct a fresh review of any potential bilateral nuclear collaboration. Yet officials in Washington, Asia, and the Middle East who track the relationship indicate that Pyongyang and Tehran have already signaled a commitment to jointly develop their ballistic missile systems and other military/scientific programs.

North Korea has vastly expanded its nuclear and long-range missile capabilities over the past year, developing intercontinental ballistic missiles that could potentially target the western United States with nuclear warheads. Over the same period, U.S. intelligence agencies have spotted Iranian defense officials in Pyongyang, raising the specter that they might share dangerous technological advances with each other. Read more ..

The Weapon's Edge

Defense News

The Israeli military has declared initial operational capability of a ship-based version of the Iron Dome intercepting system following a live-fire test earlier in the day that destroyed multiple incoming targets at sea.

The Nov. 27 milestone test capped more than 18 months of intensive coordination between the Israeli Air Force, the Israeli Navy and local industry to integrate Iron Dome with the Adir surveillance, track and guidance radar onboard the INS Lahav, a Sa’ar-5 corvette-class surface ship.

“Officially, from today, we added another operational layer to defend Israeli assets in the Mediterranean Sea,” Brig. Gen. Zvika Haimovich, commander of the Air Force’s Aerial Defense Division, told reporters.

“Now there is full connectivity between the ship-based Iron Dome, the Adir radar and our ground-based Iron Dome batteries. It was proven in today’s live-fire test and its performance is excellent,” Haimovich said. Read more ..

The Edge of Terrorism

IPT

They learn to count by attending public lashings. By the age of 9, they know how to use a gun, make a bomb, and torture prisoners. They have been raised to know that Allah hates the infidel, and rewards those who kill unbelievers, the men and women living in the West. They are the children of ISIS. And now Europe prepares for their arrival.

With the fall of the Islamic State, countries across the globe anticipate the return of so-called "foreign fighters," those who joined ISIS and its jihad from outside its strongholds in Syria and Iraq – about 6,000 of them from Europe, America, Australia, and elsewhere in the West, according to 2015 figures. And among them are an unknown number of young children, some of whom traveled there with their parents, others who were born there. Read more ..

Saudi on Edge

ACD

Inconceivably, in November 2017 Sheikh Saleh Abdallah Kamel chairman and founderof the Dallah al Baraka Group, chairman of the General Council for Islamic Banks and the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce, perhaps Saudi Arabia's richest private citizen, was placed under house arrest. His banking empire, untouched by numerous American and European investigations concerning their possible funding of terrorism, including al Qaeda, the Muslim Brotherhood, and affiliated groups, now appears under threat.

In 2000 a Bosnia police raid on the Benevolence Foundation charity located in Sarajevo resulted in the most important discovery of al Qaeda documents unearthed up to that date. The director of that charity, who was located in the United States, was later brought to trial in Chicago (US government indictment of Enaam Arnaout on 9 October 2002, 02 CR 892). Read more ..

The Edge of Terrorism

Spero

On Sunday night, a man who police identified as Mahad Abdiaziz Abdirahman, 20, of Minneapolis, stabbed two men at the Mall of America near Bloomington, Minnesota, after they tried to stop him from stealing clothes inside a dressing room at Macy’s at about 6:45 p.m. However, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune failed to mention his name or other identifying attributes in its report on the crime. The paper referred to him only as ‘the suspect.'”

A search on the Star-Tribune website for Mahad Abdirahman revealed that the name was not listed. “Mahad” means “one who preaches and invites people to Islam.” “Abdiaziz” means “the slave of Allah the master,” and Abdirahman is a common Somali Muslim last name which means “the slave of Allah who is the gracious.”

The Caliphate

Rubin Center

As the Islamic State goes into rapid decline as an entity controlling territory in Iraq and Syria, the overwhelming majority of its propaganda output has become dedicated to coverage of military operations against its enemies. Alongside that shift has come increasing emphasis on the idea that the Islamic State will still live on its ‘soldiers’ conduct operations in the heart of enemy territory. The latest issue of the Islamic State’s al-Naba’ newsletter (issue 105) contains the following infographic on the matter. Of course, in seeking to conduct attacks in ‘enemy’ countries, many Islamic State supporters are undoubtedly seeking fame in what would otherwise have been an uneventful existence without supposed meaning to their lives. Yet the infographic warns against that sort of motivation.

Also notable in this infographic is the urge to inflict maximum damage at minimum cost. Much speculation exists as to how far the Islamic State finances attacks by its operatives in the West but self-funding by operatives seems to be the preferred means, such as through taking out loans under false pretences, or relying on proceeds of common criminal activity like drug-dealing and robbery. Read more ..

The Battle for Syria

Washington Post

Syrian government forces said Thursday they have recaptured the Islamic State’s former border stronghold of Bukamal, shrinking the group’s remaining territory and leaving the militants with only a few enclaves.

The move into Bukamal, also called Abu Kamal, in eastern Syria choked off a key route for the Islamic State across the border with Iraq. The Syrian state news agency said Wednesday that pro-government forces had linked up with Iraqi troops to clear what remained of the “collapsed” militant group in the area.

The Islamic State’s self-declared caliphate, announced three years ago, once stretched across Syria and Iraq to occupy an area the size of Belgium. Now, after a series of defeats, the militants have been penned into a string of Syrian towns and villages along the Euphrates River. Read more ..

The Edge of Terrorism

The Local and agencies

Nine suspects were arrested in a series of anti-terror operations carried out around France on Tuesday, with French media reporting a planned attack on the city of Nice had been thwarted.

The raids took place in the greater Paris region of Île-de-France and the Provence-Alpes-Côtes-d'Azur region of the south east.

According to reports some nine individuals aged between 18 and 60-years-old were arrested in the raids carried out by France's specialist counter-terrorist police.

The arrests were reportedly made in the Val-de-Marne department to the south west of Paris, Seine-Saint-Denis to the capital's north, the city of Aix-en Provence, north of Marseille and the town of Menton, on the border with Italy.

North Korea's Nukes

CNBC

B-52 bombers rigged with nuclear weapons are being prepared for 24-hour alert for the first time since the Cold War, a senior U.S. Air Force official has reportedly said.

In a report by security news website Defense One General David Goldfein, Air Force chief of staff, said U.S. military leaders are reacting to new threat levels.

"The world is a dangerous place and we've got folks that are talking openly about use of nuclear weapons," he said, according to the report. Goldfein said no official order had been given to put nuclear bombers on alert, but said preparations are underway. The U.S. Department of Defense was not immediately available for comment when contacted by CNBC. Read more ..

The Edge of Terrorism

IPT

Hizballah terrorists are exploiting Germany's refugee policy and entered the country as part of the recent wave of Middle East migrants, according to the Jerusalem Post'sreview of a German intelligence report released this month.

"Since mid-2015 there are increased indications of fighters from Shi'ite militias entering Germany as legal refugees," the report says, and "roughly 50% [of the fighters] show a direct connection to Hezbollah."

A growing number of Hizballah operatives are settling in the North Rhine-Westphalia region, the report says. The region hosts the Imam-Mahdi Center – a traditional hub for Hizballah operatives. The report also cites a growing and open Hamas presence in North Rhine-Westphalia, despite Germany's terrorist designation of the Palestinian organization, where Hamas supporters exploit Germany to "collect funds" and "recruit new members to spread their propaganda." Read more ..

Iran's Nuke's

Fox

President Donald Trump is expected this week to “decertify” the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), better known simply as the Iran deal, declaring that the agreement reached in 2015 by the U.S. and five other international powers is not in America’s national interest. The matter will then be tossed back to Congress, which will have 60 days to decide whether to reimpose hefty pre-2015 sanctions.

While the President’s likely move has generated wide condemnation from foreign policy leaders — who reiterate that the United Nations nuclear watchdog agency, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), has maintained Iran is in compliance — a new 52-page investigative report by the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), entitled: “Iran’s Nuclear Core: Uninspected Military Sites,” obtained exclusively by Fox News and slated for release Wednesday, asserts that the country’s nuclear weapons program has far from halted. Read more ..

Iran's Nukes

Reuters

Iran warned the United States against designating its Revolutionary Guards Corp as a terrorist group and said U.S. regional military bases would be at risk if further sanctions were passed.

The warning came after the White House said on Friday that President Donald Trump would announce new U.S. responses to Iran’s missile tests, support for “terrorism” and cyber operations as part of his new Iran strategy.

“As we’ve announced in the past, if America’s new law for sanctions is passed, this country will have to move their regional bases outside the 2,000 km range of Iran’s missiles,” Guards’ commander Mohammad Ali Jafari said, according to state media.

Jafari also said that additional sanctions would end the chances for future dialogue with the United States, according to state media, and issued a stark warning to American troops. Read more ..

The Drone Threat

EE Times

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Arlington County, VA) is seeking out innovative drone sensing and neutralization technologies.

The U.S defense agency's Tactical Technology Office recently posted a request for information looking to identify promising technologies for countering adversary small unmanned air systems (sUAS). These would be used to augment or complement DARPA's Mobile Force Protection (MFP) program, which is currently developing a system capable of defeating self-guided sUAS - i.e., those that "do not rely on a radio or GPS receiver for their operation" - attacking a high-value convoy in transit.

The program emphasizes low-footprint solutions - in terms of size, weight, power, and required personnel needed for operation - as well as "varied and low collateral damage neutralization techniques and effectors." Phase one of the three-phase program is currently in progress, with a plan to culminate in a field evaluation in January 2018.

The Caliphate

Rubin Cemter

The Islamic State has two main types of media departments that come under its media administration: central media institutions such as al-Furqan Media and al-Hayat Media, and the provincial media offices. The latter category includes areas of formally declared ‘provinces’ (e.g. Raqqa province in Syria and Diyala province in Iraq) and areas where the Islamic State operates on the ground but has not declared a ‘province’ (e.g. Somalia). In addition to these institutions, we have Amaq News Agency, which covers services provision and civilian life in Islamic State territories, military operations and even Islamic State terrorist attacks around the world, but has not been formally acknowledged to be a part of the Islamic State’s media apparatus. In origin, Amaq News Agency is the foremost example of what was envisioned as an ‘auxiliary’ media agency for the Islamic State.

The internal documents I have obtained concern problems in media production in Raqqa province and disagreements between media departments. For example, in the first document, the Delegated Committee (the higher governing body of the Islamic State) reprimands the wali (provincial governor) of Raqqa for supposed shortcomings in media coverage of events. The Delegated Committee also asks the wali to get on with the issuing of Mawkab al-Nur (‘Procession [/Convoy] of Light’). Read more ..

Iran's Nukes

FP

“We will not be able to coerce Europe, Russia, and China into shunning Iran’s economy over policy interests that they do not share.” — Adam Szubin, former director of the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control

“The United States would have to threaten all customers who buy Iranian crude. The response would be global outrage and resistance, especially from our allies.” — Matthew Reed, vice president at Foreign Reports

In November 2011, Illinois Sen. Mark Kirk — with help from then-Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell — took the Obama White House by surprise, filing an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act that imposed crippling sanctions on the Central Bank of Iran. Days later, Kirk and New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez forged a bipartisan compromise and a vote was scheduled. Read more ..

The Edge of Terrorism

Daily Mail

America is reeling from the worst mass shooting in its history after at least 50 people were killed and more than 200 wounded at a country music festival in Las Vegas on Sunday night.

Police say the shooter was 64-year-old Stephen Paddock, described as a local man, who opened fire on the Route 91 Harvest Festival in Las Vegas Village from a room across the street in the Mandalay Bay Hotel shortly after 10pm.

Officers say Paddock was shot and killed after they breached a room in the hotel, where he had stashed an 'arsenal' of weapons used during the massacre.

Investigators are now raiding the Mesquite home he shared with Marilou Danley, described as his 'companion', who was detained for questioning in the early hours of Monday morning.

Sheriff Joseph Lombardo, of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, said investigations are still ongoing and police have not yet determined a motive. Read more ..

The Edge of Terrorism

Fox and agencies

Two women were stabbed to death Sunday in a suspected terrorist attack at the Marseille train station in southern France.

The assailant was shot dead by French security forces, Fox News reported.

Police sources told Sky News the attacker shouted "Allahu Akkbar” as he carried out the attack at Gare St. Charles. One woman had her throat slit and the other was stabbed to death, Fox News has learned.

The attacker was believed to be a man in his late twenties and of North African background. The area around Marseille's central station was sealed off following the attack.

French police said in a tweet Sunday around 2:30 p.m. local time that they had responded to an incident at the train station. Read more ..

The Battle for Syria

via Yahoo News

Israeli strikes hit a weapons depot by Damascus airport overnight, targeting a warehouse belonging to Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, which is allied with the Syrian government, a monitor said Friday.

"Israeli warplanes targeted with rocket fire a weapons depot belonging to Hezbollah near the airport," said Rami Abdel Rahman, director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

There was no immediate official confirmation from either Damascus or Israel, but the Jewish state has been accused of carrying out multiple strikes in Syria, including earlier this month.

On September 7, the Syrian army said Israeli warplanes hit one of its positions near the central town of Masyaf. The site was reportedly used by Hezbollah forces and those of Iran, another Syrian government ally. In April, the government accused Israel of firing several missiles at a military position near Damascus airport, triggering a huge explosion. Read more ..

The Edge of Terrorism

IPT News

Time may be running out for one of Hamas's main weapons against Israel: Its cross-border terror tunnels.

By 2019, according to Israel Defense Forces (IDF) assessments, Israel will complete an underground wall that stretches along the 60-kilometer (37 mile) border with Gaza. The wall is the product of several years of research and development, and is designed to eliminate the tunnel threat to Israeli communities located near Gaza.

During the past three years, since the end of its last conflict with Israel, Hamas has invested big resources into its tunnel maze. One of its top goals is to rehabilitate an ability to inject murder squads into Israeli territory through the tunnels.

Once inside Israel, they could target IDF soldiers and Israeli civilians for murder or kidnapping, whenever the next conflict breaks out. Read more ..

The Edge of Terrorism

Arutz Sheva

Following a wave of ramming attacks across Europe, as well as more conventional terror attacks including stabbings, shootings, and bombings, the ISIS terror organization is preparing a silent terror wave against American and British consumers.

While recent attacks in continental Europe have drawn front-page coverage around the globe, including a pair of attacks in Spain last month which left 16 civilians dead, ISIS terrorists have been quietly laying the groundwork for a far less bombastic – but potentially deadly – plot against the US and UK.

Security experts have uncovered evidence Islamic State terrorists are plotting to poison food in supermarkets across the US and Britain, according to a report by SITE Intelligence Group, an American terrorism monitor.Read more ..

North Korea's Nukes

Washington Post

South Korea’s defense minister on Monday said it was worth reviewing the redeployment of American tactical nuclear weapons to the Korean Peninsula to guard against the North, a step that analysts warn would sharply increase the risk of an accidental conflict.

But in New York, Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said the regime of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was “begging for war.”

And even as concern over Korea deepened following North Korea’s huge nuclear test Sunday,, South Korea’s defense ministry said Monday that Pyongyang might be preparing to launch another missile into the Pacific Ocean, perhaps an intercontinental ballistic missile theoretically capable of reaching the mainland United States. Read more ..

Iran's Nukes

Memri

In an August 22, 2017 interview on IRINN TV, Ali Akbar Salehi, head of the Atomic Energy Organization Of Iran (AEOI) and a member of Iran's nuclear negotiating team, reiterated the threats made by President Rohani on August 3, 2017 regarding Iran's ability to quickly revive its nuclear program at the point it was left prior to the JCPOA. He said that Iran will be able to start enriching uranium to 20% in the Fordo facility within only five days, and that it can also reactivate the old reactor in Arak, because cement was poured not into its core but only into a few external pipelines that are easily replaced. He also voiced vague threats about making structural changes to the AEOI that would enable it to function in ways that would "surprise" the West.

The following is a translation of his statements in the interview:

"In a recent open-door Majlis session, President [Rohani] warned America about violating the JCPOA and about [Iran's] restarting its nuclear program. This was no hollow or baseless warning, but was based on data available to the president. The president and other regime elements receive information on the activity of the AEOI, [for] we are required to report to and update the officials on the necessary [levels of] readiness, so that if they want to take a decision [on this] they will know what the situation is. Rohani's statement was based on the readiness that has been reached. Read more ..

The Iranian Threat

ACD

The US is intentionally ignoring the invisible puppet master behind ISIS terrorist attacks in Barcelona, London, Paris, Iraq, and Afghanistan. From the 1983 Beirut Barracks bombing, to the 1984 US Embassy bombings in Kuwait and Beirut, to the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing, to supplying advisors and weapons to Sunni and Shiite militia groups in Iraq, and providing similar support for the Taliban in Afghanistan, Iran has demonstrated a long history of using proxy militias and terrorists to attack US Forces. These proxy attacks are often devastatingly effective, and at least twenty-five percent of US casualties in Iraq can be linked to Iranian supported groups.

From the 1983 Beirut Barracks bombing, to the 1984 US Embassy bombings in Kuwait and Beirut, to the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing, to supplying advisors and weapons to Sunni and Shiite militia groups in Iraq, and providing similar support for the Taliban in Afghanistan, Iran has demonstrated a long history of using proxy militias and terrorists to attack US Forces. Read more ..

JNS, United with Israel and agencies

According to the report, security experts who analyzed photos of the site say the construction indicates that explosives would be stored there. The analysts also compared the facility in Syria to a rocket factory near Tehran, concluding there was a strong resemblance between the sites, indicating Iran’s involvement.

“The facility has one entrance, an administrative section, a production area and a storage wing, while some of the buildings appear to be for manufacturing ammunition. Large dirt mounds to protect the facility are also visible in the images,” the report said.

The Battle for Syria

Gloria

In the past five weeks, U.S. forces in Syria have struck directly at the Assad regime and its allies in Syria no less than four times. On May 18, U.S. warplanes struck regime and allied militia forces that breached a 34-mile exclusion zone around a U.S. outpost in southeastern Syria. Then on June 8 and June 20, the United States shot down Iranian-made drones as they approached the outpost.

But the most dramatic event so far was the June 18 downing of a Syrian air force Su-22 by a U.S. Navy F/A-18 Super Hornet. This took place after regime forces attacked a town held by the U.S.-aligned Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) near Tabqa, in northern Syria. The Su-22 dropped bombs near the SDF fighters, ignored U.S. warnings, and was then shot down.

The downing of the Su-22 threatened to bring Washington and Moscow into conflict in the war-torn country. In the aftermath of the incident, Russia announced the end of deconfliction arrangements with U.S. forces and that it had decided to treat future U.S. flights west of the Euphrates River as hostile. Read more ..

India and Israel

Press Trust of India and agencies

India is deploying along its volatile border with Pakistan a smart Israel-developed fencing system having a 'quick response team' mechanism which strikes when the CCTV-powered control room detects an infiltration attempt.

The BSF is implementing an ambitious project called the comprehensive integrated border management system (CIBMS) as part of the Narendra Modi government's plan to completely seal the Indo-Pak and India-Bangladesh borders in the next few years.

The BSF is tasked with guarding the over 6,300-km-long two borders and its chief, in an interview to PTI, said the new frontier guarding systems will bring a "sea change", for the first time, in this domain.

The Edge of Cyber

EETimes

A new report from cloud and security solution provider F5 Labs (Seattle, WA) examines how attackers have developed botnets - or "thingbots" - to target IoT devices.

IoT devices, says F5, have become "the cyberweapon delivery system of choice" for attackers building botnets - collections of Internet-connected devices that are infected and controlled by a common type of malware. Botnets can overwhelm systems with traffic with distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, steal data, send spam, and allow an attacker access to the device and its connection.

According to the latest report, IoT attack activity grew 280% from the prior six-month period. This included "massive growth" due to the Mirai malware - which turns networked devices running Linux into remotely controlled bots that can then be used as part of a botnet - and subsequent attacks.